No… It can't be true.

It can't…

A small boy, curled in a dark corner muddled with puddles, his long messy blond hair covering his face. Salty teardrops added to the rain's, the dark grey clouds sheltering the once-magnificent manor.

A building crumbled to the ground, scorch marks and blackened pieces of furniture littering the site. Ashes iced the once-carpeted flooring, a grey touch amidst all the charcoal. Smoke rose from select spots still burning from the leftover fire, corpses stinking the air as their flesh baked from the red hot flames still dancing upon them.

The little boy didn't want to see the world as it was around him. Dark, unforgiving, and hellish – that was the only way he could describe it as. He hated the men that did this to him, that made him all alone in this cruel place…

His beautiful blue-green eyes were gazing upon a horrifying sight: his mother and father's burnt remains spread across the ground in front of him, only four meters away. His brother and sister's small bodies were somewhere, a little distance away. His baby sister, a tiny charred body protected by his mother's arms, was damaged so badly, she was beyond recognition. His other family members were the same.

"Why did I have to live, un?" His small body starts to tremble and shake, trying so hard to supress the sobs. His mouthed hands, held out in front of him with ashes and dirt on them, loll their long, slobbery tongues out, then draw back in. He grimaced in disgust at his unappetizing kekkei genkai, the source of all the torturous name-calling and teasing… The reason why rocks had been thrown at him, why everyone his age would tease and taunt him, why everyone shunned him as an outsider.

If suffering through tragedies like this is what it was to be a ninja, he didn't want to live like this. In fact, he hated ninjas.

He wandered through the morbid scene, searching for something. After a few moments, he knelt down, tears still streaming from his face, brushing away some cold ashes off the ground to reveal a blackened door. A door installed into the ground, the gate to his favorite hiding place, the cellar. He pulled the door open, coughing as ashes and crumblings rose into his lungs. The door creaked, revealing a dark stairway that fell into the ground.

He stepped down into the cold cellar, calling for anyone that might have survived.

"Mama-a-a-a! Papa-a-a-a! Are you d-down here, un? Someone please say something!" He choked, his small nose dribbling a little. He sniffled, calling again and again as he walked further down into the dark room.

It was cool, despite the fire that had taken place. It was kept cool because this was where his family kept their boxes upon boxes of precious clay. He sighed, walking over to his own small box of clay, kept in an air-tight container to keep the moisture inside. He opened his box, pulling off a soft handful of the grey earth in his hand. He played with it a moment, memories flooding his mind. He sniffled again, unable to cry anymore.

He stayed in the cellar for a long time. It was a long while before he heard any other human activity. When he thought he heard faint voices, he put the clay back in his box and carried it up with him, investigating.

Two ninjas were standing on the outside of the mess. He paused, unsure what to do, then continued leaving the cellar. He looked back just once, knowing this would be the last time he would ever see his precious father's clay collection.

He started stumbling away from the ninjas. He'd recognized them as two who had taken part in name-callings last week. They didn't seem to notice him – or, rather, didn't seem to care – as he ran away from the men, leaving behind the only thing he ever knew.

He was leaving home at the age of ten, and he was never looking back.